


We Must Eat

by gloss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bantering and Bickering, Cooking, F/F, Gen, Life in the Resistance, M/M, Post-War, Treat, pre-relationship Jannah/Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: Poe inducts Jannah into cooking duty and argues with Rose about best practices; Jannah notices just how cute Rose is.Finn is late to the party.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30
Collections: May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	We Must Eat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/gifts).



> Dearest Ny, I took inspiration from a prompt you left in the cooking flash exchange: _Rose and Poe argue over how to cook rice_. I hope that's cool.
> 
> Rice = manumin here, a corruption of the Ojibwe term.

> There is food in the bowl, and more often than not, because of what honesty I have, there is nourishment in the heart,  
>  to feed the wilder, more insistent hungers. We must eat.  — M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating

  
Poe's waiting for Jannah on the steps to the kitchen. When she arrives, he pushes himself to his feet and leads her around the corner to the storeroom.

"First thing you do on kitchen duty," he says as he climbs a short ladder and wrestles down a sack of dried manumin grain, "is check the menu against the pantry and make adjustments."

"Shouldn't they already match?" she asks. "The menu should come from what's on hand."

Grinning, he drops the sack into her waiting arms. "You'd think so! But people have their own ways of doing things around here." He jumps off the ladder and dusts off his hands as he adds, "Their own _stupid_ , pointless ways."

Despite his words, he doesn't seem angry, or even all that annoyed. He's still grinning, clapping her on the shoulder, showing her the rough organization of the pantry. He grabs another sack, this one of savory tubers, before they return to the kitchen.

"And here you're going to need to get the timing right," he says and dumps the tubers into a big vat to wash. As they scrub, he explains, "Like the manumin's going to take about 45 minutes, but these big boys and the protein slabs both cook up in about ten. So you need to balance those —"

Jannah is about to tell him that she's familiar with things like simple project timing, but before she can, Rose pops up from behind the broad stove.

"Manumin shouldn't take 45 minutes," Rose says. 

"It does when you cook it right," Poe retorts. "What are you doing here?"

Rose gives him a big cheery grin. "Hey, Jannah. What am I doing here? Kitchen rota, same as you."

"But Finn said..." Poe trails off and looks down at the tubers. "Never mind."

"What did Finn say?" Jannah asks.

"It's not important," he mumbles.

"Yeah, Poe!" Rose calls. "What did Finn say? My friend Finn, such a good guy."

Still looking down dejectedly, Poe also seems to be fighting a smile at the mention of Finn's name. He heaves a deep breath and says to Rose, "It's nothing. He just said we shouldn't be in the kitchens together."

"That's ridiculous," she says.

"Why not?" Jannah asks. The tubers are clean now, so she grabs a few to start chopping. This is kitchen duty, something she's done regularly since she was a junior trooper. It's not controversial, so far as she's ever noticed.

"Dice them, please," Rose tells her. 

"On it," Jannah replies. The tubers are beautifully fresh, still moist at the center. Her mouth waters at the simple prospect of fresh food. Their diet back on Kef Bir was both skimpy and limited, centered on kelp prepared as many different ways as they could dream up and the tough, chewy fins of spinnaker fish. Since she's been here with the resistance, Jannah has eaten more food, in greater variety, than she used to think possible.

Poe empties the sack of manumin into another tub and sets it under a tap.

"You're ruining it," Rose calls from the stove. Her tone is light, conversational, but she's scowling nonetheless.

Surprised, Jannah points her knife at herself, asking _Me?_

Rose tips her head in Poe's direction. "Dameron. Stop drowning that grain. It never did anything to you."

"Shut up," he says, just as brightly, as he swishes the manumin around in the water. He drains the water through a flat mesh into a smaller bowl and sets it aside. "This stuff is great for bathing," he tells Jannah. "Finn uses it on his hair."

"He does?" She peers at the cloudy water. "Huh."

"Don't believe me?"

"No, I believe you," she says. "He's got great hair."

Poe's smile shifts intensity, from easygoing grin to something a lot more personal and focused. "He really does, doesn't he?"

"Finn also knows not to wash the manumin!" Rose calls as she checks the temperatures of her cooking surfaces.

"Untrue and slanderous!" Poe calls back. "He appreciates fluffy, delicious, correctly-prepared manumin with the best of them!"

Jannah tries to focus on her chopping duties while Poe boils water with a submersible laser. She can't help but laugh, however, at their passionate disagreement.

"What's so funny?" he asks quietly as he measures out the boiling water and pours it over the washed manumin. The small oval grains rise and blossom in the water.

She thinks fast. "Your laser. Makes me feel primitive with all my knowledge of cooking over fire and smoke."

"Oh, my magic wand?" he asks and zips it through the air like the galaxy's smallest light saber. 

"Please don't call it that," Rose says as she passes with a pile of protein slabs in her arms.

Poe winks at Jannah and stows the wand in his belt. "Now," he says loudly, as if for Rose's benefit, "we set it on low, the very lowest, and cover it twice, first with synth-foil, then with a heavy lid or, say you're cooking over a fire, a slab of some sort, and we leave it alone. We do not check it. Not once. For twenty minutes."

"You're so full of crap," Rose tells him. 

Poe leans against the counter, crossing his legs at the ankle and arms across his chest. "Go on, then. Tell Jannah — dear, brilliant, force-sensitive and heroic Jannah, who shouldn't be corrupted in any way whatsoever — how you like to ruin manumin." He nudges Jannah with the toe of one boot. "Consider this further education in galactic cultures. Some cuisine is just..."

"Stop right there," Finn says from the entrance. His shoulders are so broad, he nearly fills the space. That, along with the firm, unamused tone to his voice, makes him seem larger and implacable, highly authoritative.

That impression is seriously undermined, however, as he strides inside and pecks Poe on the cheek before sliding in between Jannah and Poe, slinging an arm around each of their necks, and leaning in to look at the food before them.

"Don't knock anyone's cuisine," Finn continues. "Seriously, Poe, that's right up at the top of _how not to be an insensitive dick_."

"I'm not criticizing Hays Minor!" Poe protests. "I'm saying that she, Rose Tico, an individual, has some messed-up ideas about cooking manumin. And I, Poe B. Dameron, another individual, need to let her know that she's wrong. Very wrong."

Across the glowing cooking surfaces, Rose sticks her tongue out at him. Some of her hair is frizzing out behind the wide band she has on for hygiene and her cheeks are pink from the heat. She looks really cute, Jannah thinks, and not for the first time.

"She makes a persuasive argument," Finn notes, hooking his arm more tightly around Poe's neck to drag him in for a noogie and another kiss. 

"But how do you like manumin?" Jannah asks him and succeeds in keeping from smiling. "I think that's the key question."

Finn steps free and rocks back on his heels. "Huh."

"Yeah, Finn!" Rose opens one steaming container and slides in cubes of protein. "What's your preference?"

"Don't answer that," Poe tells him. "This is a trick. They're tricky."

Finn rubs his chin, hand hiding, then revealing, a slow, happy smile. "I've always been partial to flatbreads, myself."

"That wasn't the question!" Rose says.

"It really wasn't," Poe says. "She's right."

"Also a fan of steamed nutgrass, of course," Finn continues musingly. "Piping hot, crack some pepper and drop a big spoon of curd or butter in there? Nothing better."

Rose raises a seriously lethal-looking knife. "Answer the question, Finn."

Poe shifts a little to block Finn. "Yeah, buddy. Answer the real question. Manumin."

"Then again," Finn says, as if they hadn't spoken, addressing Jannah alone, "you know those opaque little wrappers we had last week for dumplings?" She nods; those dumplings remain among the best things she's ever eaten. "Yeah. Roll up some cold protein and greens in those, you've got yourself a portable _and_ tasty lunch."

"I'm so hungry now." Jannah passes her bowl of chopped tubers to Rose and wipes her forehead on her sleeve. Rose hip-checks her lightly, handing her a towel.

"There's some cold porridge from earlier," Rose says, lifting her chin toward the coolers.

Jannah bounces a little, then sets off for the ice room. "Do you want some?" 

"Sure, thanks!"

When she returns, Rose is sitting on a step-stool, away from the cookers. Finn and Poe are gone; the station she'd shared with Poe looks wiped down and tidied. Their manumin steams away, untouched for another ten minutes.

Jannah hands Rose a bowl of chilled porridge, then lifts the flask of sweet sedge-milk she dug out. "Say when."

Rose keeps her gaze on Jannah. Flushed cheeks, bright eyes, curling smile. Jannah nearly spills the milk, she's so distracted. She sets it aside and crouches next to Rose to eat her own potion. The porridge is cool and gummy, very sweet, and she's already hoping that she can help herself to seconds.

"Show me how to make manumin sometime?" she asks when their bowls are empty. Her lips are sticky, her voice hoarse.

"I'd love to," Rose replies, so quietly it has the force of an oath.


End file.
